A few days ago, I went outside in the morning to see what I could see.  I am often amazed that spending a half-hour outside, open to whatever is there, yields wonders to observe, and so different from one day to the next!  And that morning was no exception.

     I stepped out onto the deck and took in the air around me.  The morning was damp and mild.  The air felt languid and still, at rest after days of blustering wind and rain.  I leaned my elbows on the railing and looked out to the west, across the valley at the long, high ridge that is Great North Mountain.  Layers of muted greens and browns, punctuated here and there with a dot of red, gave the mountain her soft, autumnal look.  The top of the ridge was so softened by a deep mist that it had disappeared, blending with sky and land.    

     After a moment or two of gazing out on Great North Mountain, I noticed a couple of small yellow jackets, very still, on the wooden deck railing where I was leaning.  Then I noticed four or five more of them, also unmoving on the railing.  They appreared to be resting. 

     So perfect were these insects’ proportions of yellow and black, it was as if they had been designed by an artist.  Six yellow legs, a round black, furry head with a couple of well-placed yellow spots and tapering, dark antennae, a round, black mid-section, and a long yellow and black striped abdomen.  

     After a little while, I noticed that the abdomen of one of the yellow jackets had begun to move.  It appeared to be pulsing.  When I peered through my magnifying glass, I could see that the abdomen was actually shortening and lengthening like an accordion.  And sometimes the yellow jacket would bend its abdomen to the left and rub its back-most left leg against it, or to the right and rub it with its back right leg.

     Then, other parts of the body would begin to move as well.  The antennae would come to life, reaching out this way and that.  I delighted to watch as the little bug extended its front most legs, rubbing the left leg over the length of the left antenna, while also doing the same on the right side.  This yellow jacket rubbed its antennae again and again, bowing its head to bring the antennae within reach of the front legs.  It then walked around a little bit and suddenly flew off. 

     Each yellow jacket seemed to show a similar pattern–from stillness to a pulsating abdomen to movement of antennae, a little walking, and then flight. 

     Occasionally, another yellow jacket would land on the railing, stand in stillness for awhile, and then go through the pattern I observed in the others.  Eventually, the railing was bare of yellow jackets.  A few stayed close by, flying about the corkscrew willow tree near the deck.  Others became tiny black dots in the sky and soon disappeared.

     After my morning observations of the yellow jackets, I read a little about them.  Apparently, these insects are very active in the summer and fall.                                                              

  Perhaps the yellow jackets I observed were resting or ‘drying out’ after the rain, collecting their energies that had been slowed by all the rain of the previous days.–April Moore

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Celebrating our beautiful Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.